Tag: habits

How to think about diet and exercise

For diet and exercise, don’t stress out if you don’t get everything you want done in a single day. Think about it in big picture terms. No single day is going to make or break you. It’s the accumulation of making the right decisions (good habits) that will get you to where you want to go.

When tracking what micronutrients you want to consume or what muscle groups you want to target, aim for a weekly average. Yes, you will need to break that down into what it equates to per day, but as long as you fit it in throughout the course of the week and you hit your weekly goals consistently, you should be ok.

Do what is manageable/sustainable for you and forgive yourself when you mess up. Instead of beating yourself up when missing a goal, get back on track as quickly as possible (with the next thing you eat or your next workout). Reduce barriers to what you want to achieve, develop good habits, and repeat.

Training like a professional

If you only work on something when you’re motivated, you’ll never achieve outstanding results. That’s what separates professionals from amateurs. Professionals deliberately practice their craft daily. They make sure that they eat, sleep, and train for optimum performance. They’ll break down film/recordings to see where they are weak or where there is an opportunity due to an opponent’s weakness, then they try to improve or exploit that weakness.

To become truly great at something, you have to practice…a lot. You can’t just do something once and then expect to become an expert. It takes studying and experience. But if you depend solely on your motivation to do the necessary work, you will never become truly elite in your field. Motivation comes and goes. You can have it for stretches, but when things start becoming difficult, motivation is often the first thing to go.

Muhammad Ali is quoted as saying, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” He knew the importance of training – of doing what he didn’t want to do so he could get to the next level. Often, it is what we are willing to do that others aren’t that being us success. Are you willing to sacrifice in the short term to get the long term results you want?

So the questions are: what do you need to be doing to bring you the success you desire? Are you deliberately training, living purposefully, and working as hard as you can? Or are you relying on motivation to get you by? Take some time today to think about your goals and figure out what you need to be doing habitually to get you there.

Figuring out what you should and shouldn’t do

Tease out the similarities of what “everyone else does” in specific situations and see what “common truth” everyone accepts that is incorrect. Will doing the opposite produce better results?

Then, try to look at what the uncommonly successful people do. What habits or routines do they perform that have helped them get to where they are now. Are there commonalities amongst the highest achievers across different fields of study that separate them from what you’re currently doing or what most people are currently doing?

After you figure out these two things (what to do and what NOT to do), get intentional and plan out how you will change your actions to set yourself up for future success. Put your plan into action and focus on being deliberate with your practice every single day. Over time, you will eventually master the subject and achieve the results you have been dreaming of.